Author: Zoe Reimer

Bobby C. Martin, a painter, has many of the same ideas in his art work that I find in mine. He uses old family photographs to inspire his practice. Martin works mainly with oil paint, but also uses techniques such as encaustic, acrylic, block printing, and etching. Although our mediums are completely different our concepts are very much the same. In his artist statement he says:

“I base many of my works on photographs that belonged to my full blood Indian grandmother, my aunts, my mother—images found in shoeboxes, forgotten in the bottoms of drawers, or found among the tattered black pages of old leather-bound photo albums. The photographs have very personal meanings for me as the artist, but I have found also that there is an almost universal recognition among viewers of a sense of history and identity, evoking memories of their own family’s past.

My hope is for my art to become like an old family photograph—perhaps cherished, perhaps stuffed in a box in the attic—but always able to evoke memories every time it is viewed.”

Mom & Mary Ann (The Redhead)

oil and collage on canvas

48 x 72 in.

Sunday Best

oil on canvas

24 x 36 in.

Granny & Pa

oil on canvas

Courtesy Dr. J.W. Wiggins Native American Art Collection

I am drawn to Martin’s work because of his yearning to learn about his family, and himself. While creating new pieces, he says he is able to learn about the people within the photos. He says “it makes you really think about what they were like and what their lives were like.” With my work I try and do the same thing. I am a very family oriented person, and I think this is what drew me to the photographs in the first place. I have a yearning to find out about my ancestors, whether they be alive or passed away. I feel like if I am able to learn about them, I can in turn learn about myself.

thanks everyone for coming to the baby shower slash potluck for Tara. if you could not make it you missed out on a fun afternoon with good food, this site
good company, and good conversation! the baby basket for the adopt a family should still be available if anyone has anything to donate.

These videos are of two different ceramic artist’s that I really find inspiring, buy perhaps not completely in the direction my work is going while writing my grad paper. I could repeat what Stichter says in her video that her work is based off of people she encounters and makes portraits of what she imagines their inner turmoil is possibly, cure but they are equally a portrait of herself as well. What first drew me to her work was a rabbit that displayed to much emotion that you couldn’t help but find in yourself that feeling that it expressed. The sculptures large scale allows you to see each sculpt of the clay, and I terribly wish to touch one. With the size also its impressive how much I can imagine someone physically relating to them on a human scale.

I Am No One by Beth Cavener Stichter, Stoneware, 32″ x 37″ x 30″

Without getting into Kate MacDowell’s concept too far, she first inspired me when I was making my small wire skeletons. Everything seemed so fragile and precious in her work so I reflected on that with my work and what I wanted to protect in my hands. I Highly recommend if your interested to follow the links.

Sparrow by Kate MacDowell made out of Porcelian

Zo~

The Reparative Impulse

The ACAD Fibre Department hosted a most charming lecture with UK artist Yvonne Mullock on November 6, Phimosis
2013. Yvonne has a multidisciplinary research-led practice that has taken her ( so far, but look out world!) to various parts of the western world, including Newfoundland, Kentucky, Argyle, Bute and Hertfordshire. She was able to give students 20 minutes of her time for studio visits, responses and a talk. As I found her presentation and her work so inspirational, I used my 20 minutes to ask her questions about her life, process and some vagrant ideas.

Yvonne’s B.A. degree is from the Glasgow School of Art in Painting and Drawing. I was interested in the transition between the discipline of painting and drawing and the multidisciplinary work that she is currently engaged with. Yvonne discussed the fact that she sees no division between her training as a painter and the practice that she is pursuing. She feels that as an artist she draws inspiration from things that surround her in her life. Mullock went on to say that the Glasgow School was very traditional, and that although her work in realistic painting was what was being taught and expected of her, she felt stifled by that form. Upon graduation, and a small inheritance from her Auntie Joan, Yvonne went to London to visit a friend. It was there that she chanced upon the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, and talked to the Education Program Director about the potential of a residency. The Museum had never been broached about a possibility like this before, and luckily for Mullock the Director had an arts background and so was receptive to the idea. Yvonne searched out and received some funding, and was installed in an absentee biologist’s office for her studio residency. She remarked upon the excitement of it all: immersed in a real biologist’s office, who was off in Belize doing field work, and full access to the Museum. For her it was also about being active in something that wasn’t boring and stuffy as the Glasgow School, but an adventure that she was formulating herself, and working in response to.

Yvonne’s DIY sense of independence comes through in her practice; both in what she is making and in her understanding and appreciation of the tactile material world of craft and art. ( We never touched on that issue, thank goodness, as we only had 20 minutes and not a full evening and a bottle of wine). To illustrate, Mullock tells a story about the choice of a gift when she was younger. She was offered a watch, but begged for a sewing machine. This was to be a formative decision, as she taught herself how to sew, and has used that skill extensively in her practice, both with her work in the costume department of theatre and opera and in her art practice.

Also evident is Yvonne’s sense of humour in her work. I asked her about negotiating the “art stars” of the art world and how, with her honesty and direct approach to life she deals with large egos and the artificiality that can surround that world. She responded by likening it to working in opera and stage, where she was always given the more strange or difficult talent to work with. She enjoys the challenge of the “strange and odd” ( Mullock), again which is evident in her work ( look at her series of the cross- Canadian art quilt images, where the quilts are designed with holes for the female breasts to be displayed). Again charmingly and bluntly, she did tell me that she “loved weirdos” but was not good with dealing with (expletive deleted) rude people.

The interaction with people is evident again in her work; many of her research-led projects deal with entering a community and interacting therein. The Fogo Island residency, where she was formative in spearheading the soft furnishing cultural display of the Fogo Island Inn, involved researching the hand crafts of the local villagers, from quilting to rughooking. The islanders, due to the sense of thrift and being some of the original upcyclers, make their quilts and rugs from scraps of unrepairable and unused clothing and worn out household linens that can be cut around and reused. Mullock’s So to Sew interactive performance at Wreck City involved using the “reparative impulse” to mend clothing that was brought to her, with love and care. At the end of the repair, she sewed in a label with her name to commemorate the act, and her participants left with a memento of remembrance from Yvonne, as well as a mended article of clothing. When I was listening to Mullock talk, the “reparative impulse” as coined by Jeanne Randolph kept playing in my head. Sure enough, I found the quote in Jane Kidd’s “To Practice in the Middle”:

The reparative impulse is altruistic, generous, and synthetic. It does not cast out what is impure or ruined.It restructures,reinterprets, and illuminates the potential of the impure subject, object, idea or form. The reparative impulse attempts an integration of grief for the lost ideal with the desire to make good for injury done.Reparative action is the endeavour to restore. Rather than hiding traces of damage, it integrates them with grief of the lost ideal and the remaining qualities of value. (Randolph)

This terminology seems to encapsulate the impulse in Mullock. She enacts both altruism and generosity in her work, and is willing to look at the value of the lost ideal. Her Samoyed fur jacket, knit for a stuffed dead ( obviously, if it was stuffed) Mexican Hairless dog in the Rothschild Zoological Museum, is another example of her altruism, however idealistic.

In closing we talked about the concept of the triangle of Scotland/Fogo Island/Calgary. I asked her about that juxtaposition from a cultural viewpoint. I could see the similarities, both economically and geographically, between Fogo Island and Scotland, but Calgary’s oil and gas economy and conservative mentality must have been a bit of an adjustment for her. The move was prompted by her partner’s involvement with the Watershed + Public Art Project with the City of Calgary. Mullock responded that she is optimistic about the new territory here to explore and investigate. I found her both personally and professionally to be an inspirational and encouraging artist and speaker, with an unorthodox “breath of fresh air” approach to her work.

The cycle of abuse is much like a cycle of life, website
moving through motions of forgetting and
remembering, and forgetting again. An act of violence, the feeling of neglect, the power of fear,
drain a victim. Through a victims every motion they must fight the restraints of shame and doubt, hurt and fear. There is temporary comfort and ease in a moment of reassurance. A
momentary trust in the sweet talking. Smoothing over the trauma with hollow words.

Candy coat
the pain, forget and move on.

-Natalie
ok i shall try to put to words (in more point form because its easier and feels the most honest) the things i am thinking about with my crochet objects before i present on Wednesday.

crocheting is something done with rhythm, meningitis
same as knitting. things that also have (or commonly do have in variation) rhythm are; breathing, click your heart beat, moon cycles and nature with seasons. this expands to growth and decay, things begin and things end. cycles are also comforting, and relayed upon. rhythm is comforting. community is comforting and also keeps loneliness and isolation at bay. culturally individualism makes us lonely because we consider ourselves singular entities, rather than as apart of a something bigger. this is also considered a western idea. (*video worth watching added below*)

how do we relate to the self and to others? objects as stand in for people for example because they can be sources of sentiment. sentiment: “exaggerated and self-indulgent feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.” this exists and multiple forms and exists in childhood toys for example. in this piece i am attempting to convey a intimacy with objects of rhythm, sentiment and comfort. i want to have a sound recording of a heartbeat playing in the background of this piece in hopes it will relate more to a level of human connection. if a heart beat is heard in a closed room i want it to relate to being in a womb. a safe and natural environment.

i am using a round chair that will be covered with both the objects i made and an assortment of stuff animals. (i will not be offended if anyone wishes to sit.) there is more in regards to the crochet objects because they act as containers. “containers are receptive; they establish a transition between interior and exterior.” (Mathieu 116). to me these objects have meaning that i am not sure is really important to the piece but they are filled with material that are without purpose, and projects i have not finished.

I have been thinking a lot about my identity. A great deal of it feels lost, and a lot of that has to do with feeling stuck. “Feeling stuck” doesn’t really justify how I really feel. Still, I am powering through, and utilizing this sense of void to as much of my advantage as I possibly can.

I have responded to this sense of misplaced identity by going to the roots of where I often feel lost. This has caused me to consider sexuality and spirituality, while still continuing to respond to, and think about, historical people and events.

I created this garment for my silkscreen class. It consists of a heavy gown with silkscreen details along the front hem, and lacing up the back; a silkscreen printed mask, which is three layers stacked upon each other; a dip-dyed shroud. The overall appearance was inspired by a 19th century image of a woman, and 17th century fashion.

This garment is about virginity. I have been thinking a lot about sexuality, and the place of women as sexual beings. I drew parallels to the Salem Witch Trials. I am still thinking about what it means in all of its forms, and in its whole. I am at a moment where I need to make, and give meaning as I work, and afterwards. Still, identity is a trigger for what I am creating.

its not really apart of my senior studio work but i thought i would make a post about my weaving because i just really enjoyed making it. now that i have finished it a few weeks earlier than its due date i no longer have it as a excuse to not work on my senior studio stuff. the drape on this is amazing and its made from; nylon, medicine
cashmere, merino, and baby alpaca, silk dyed with lac. i have extra of the dyed baby alpaca and silk blend so guess i am going to have to make something with it soon.

These videos are of two different ceramic artist’s that I really find inspiring, therapy perhaps not completely in the direction my work is going while writing my grad paper. I could repeat what Stichter says in her video that her work is based off of people she encounters and makes portraits of what she imagines their inner turmoil is possibly, sick but they are equally a portrait of herself as well. What first drew me to her work was a rabbit that displayed to much emotion that you couldn’t help but find in yourself that feeling that it expressed. The sculptures large scale allows you to see each sculpt of the clay, and I terribly wish to touch one. With the size also its impressive how much I can imagine someone physically relating to them on a human scale.

I Am No One by Beth Cavener Stichter, Stoneware, 32″ x 37″ x 30″

Without getting into Kate MacDowell’s concept too far, she first inspired me when I was making my small wire skeletons. Everything seemed so fragile and precious in her work so I reflected on that with my work and what I wanted to protect in my hands. I Highly recommend if your interested to follow the links.

While attempting my first draft of my grad paper I feel it is necessary to discuss why it is important that my work exist in and around Carstairs. I don’t actually like it here anymore than others in my age group that went to school here but it is important for me to understand how it has impacted my life at present and for the future. And let me be clear it is not my forever home.

I consider my life displaced between the ages of six and seven. To a kid that age I faced a traumatic event or series of events. Traumatic could be a strong word perhaps but I am just going go with it. One: I moved off the farm which was kinda my everything that I related to. Two: my parents divorced after the move to Carstairs. Three: my dog Max who was my first best friend had ran away. (Actually a couple of years ago I found out he was found and given to someone on a acreage because he was ultimately a farm dog and could not adjust to a small backyard.)

What do you know maybe my connection to the canine figures is in relation to my un-adjustment like Max to being in a enclosed space?? I may have to go rewrite a paragraph in my paper now….

In short this place is relevant to who I am as a person but I do not entirely know exactly how until I distill all my inspirations which I believe primarily come from my childhood.

photograph of field being turned overphotograph taken at ground levelfound stones in a lineplaced seeds in a circlefield drawn on by combinerocks placed in circleclose up of cut blade of wheatphotograph

As the title suggests these are photos taken last friday while out making a time lapse film in preparation for our midterm this week. Things I thought about as I walked through the buffer zones between fields was that nature doesn’t manage itself for man. Weeds push through the fences marking a fields territory, website and they grow without care of mans constant attack on them. There exists no evil plot to destroy the crop, viagra except the will to survive.

The silence except for the wind was not awkward, but calming like when I use to rest on my mother chest listening to her heart beat. I began not to care about all the pressing deadlines that needed attention when I would finally return home. It’s comfortable feeling small underneath the big sky. It matters more for me that nature exists, than I do to nature, as I watched nature dress for fall.

My name is Zoe Reimer, sale and I am current fibre student writing my grad paper in my final year at Alberta College of Art + Design. In my time here I have felt a pull towards making nature based work, particularly because I grew up in a rural community here in Alberta, and your work was recommended for me to look into. If this email finds you well and if you would not mind spending the time, it would be a great help if you could answer a few questions for me. I must apologize in advance if my questions are misinformed in any way or limitedly engaging.

Land art inspirits a personal connection to the natural world, does that for you in anyway make your work more for yourself rather than for the gallery space? At present what is your favourite piece and who was it for? And of course what keeps you going and has this changed at any point in your career?

In effect, thank you for getting to this email, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Zoe Reimer

Hi Zoe,

Thanks for your interest.

Don’t know exactly how to answer your questions but I will try.

I don’t really consider myself to be a nature artist but rather an artist who just makes work. I live in the forest and work with materials that I am surrounded by and ideas that I find compelling and that motivate me. Usually my latest piece is my favourite piece only because it is taking all of my focus. I am motivated by life, I pursue things that are of interest and believe (perhaps naively) that art can change the world, if not for others then at least for ourselves. I do make work for me first. When we follow our bliss we cannot help but be motivated. The more you follow it the better it gets. Somehow out of that we make a living or even just get by. It is in the making that I get the most reward. Everything else is bonus.

“For me looking, diabetes and pregnancy touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins….I have become aware of raw nature is in a state of change and how that change is the key to understanding….When a change comes, the idea must alter or it will, and often does, fail.”

~Andy Goldsworthy

It is a gem to find on Andy Goldsworthy’s website his philosophy on his art and it demands further research into other land artists statements. Land art has always felt spiritual, calming and gentle, and un-reliant on the gallery space to validate it. As I read more on Goldsworthy, I am moved by his connection to his process. I relate that he makes, in the moment, and how near impossible it is to make work without gagging by personal experience what it should be.

I really enjoy his awareness to how change is key to understanding his material. It always seems given time, more information gains me deeper insight into my actions and how important is to work instinctively because forcing work is not always productive. However I would add to his statement that when an idea isn’t altered and it fails it shouldn’t be considered a failure, for there will be beauty in seeing natures resistance to mans demands upon it. Or maybe I just see it as delayed alteration or acceptance of my stubbornness.

I am suddenly reminded of my caving trip I took at the end of this summer, my guide voiced what always pained me when we think of nature in the context of existing purely for human enjoyment and how we always end up ruining what beauty exists naturally. For every breath of air we took, for every step, the caves years of isolated stalactites and stalagmites growth were all stunted, ruined and stollen. Nature in its purest form doesn’t exist once man as gazed upon it, for once he does he sees ways he thinks it should be better.

Remember when you use to draw or make things when you were little, no rx then drop whatever you were doing as soon as you realized someone was watching you? Did you ever feel like while you were in your own space creating your own little world for the pleasure of yourself, clinic then suddenly your were maybe violated? I use to feel that why doing most things on my own or with a friend or my sister, cost it breaks your zone having a audience but now I totally get why people get so fascinated by what we do as artists and craftsmen/women. Having taken glass or wheel throwing for an example I will happily admit I could watch someone else make stuff for hours!

I get the same pleasure watching as I do making, especially as I’ve come to accept I cant get material to do exactly what I want it to anyhow (Ive even begun to grow fond of my unintended experiments). Our hand and eye ordination is just as interesting as our personal vices that we bring to our work. Maybe this is just me admitting to myself this is just another case of me being unable to divide my attention between two or three things like watching TV or reading a book while making myself lunch (to be clear its not like I cant make grill cheese perfectly but I seem to continue to challenge myself to make it half attentively.)

So I hope I wont bore you into watching just a minute even of this Bert Haanstra video, but really watch the hands of people making in it. Its like a dance that goes both unnoticed and unappreciated! Or you can just enjoy the jazz in your background.

I had this huge urge while researching Land Art to go hop in my car and drive down Bergen road by the river and take my camera and just move stuff around. *mission accomplished as of Sept 17*

I did this as studio research and while conducting my experiments I realized how what I did changed how I saw the terrain because I had left a human mark in nature. This realization had me also think on when I walk through the fields around my hometown in Carstairs. Its a growing community suffering a lot of growing pains and I like to walk the surrounding fields that are being developed. At first they are featureless once the farmer is no longer involved, pancreatitis
then I have watched huge piles of earth being moved, otolaryngologist
adding strange landmarks unnatural to the flat prairie. The landscape becomes more and more constructed by man. Its more recently that these changes are becoming more and more frequent as well.

I connect to this landscape for many reasons. My early childhood was spent on a pig farm and I take a huge comfort seeing all this space, just earth and sky because I think I can actually feel the air move gently around me. My heritage comes also from a farming background, my dads parents came here to Canada from Germany just after the Second World War and my moms family has been in Canada from a few more generations; both of which were farmers of some sort in Manitoba. When I am outside in these fields I feel connected to that simpler way of life that was shorten for me by moving off the farm.

I have developed a forever increasing collection of photographs of clouds, many of which are of sunrises I have seen when out and about walking in the morning, and some also where I work. I document them and capture the landscape that is fleeting but so beautiful. A theory I am toying with is continuing with land art and only keep the photo documents of what I do, thereby understanding what mark I leave on nature and my connections too it.

man made rock pile in river by myselfman made rock formation #1 by myselfman made rock formation #2 by myself

I had this huge urge while researching Land Art to go hop in my car and drive down Bergen road by the river and take my camera and just move stuff around. *mission accomplished as of Sept 17*

I did this as studio research and while conducting my experiments I realized how what I did changed how I saw the terrain because I had left a human mark in nature. This realization had me also think on when I walk through the fields around my hometown in Carstairs. Its a growing community suffering a lot of growing pains and I like to walk the surrounding fields that are being developed. At first they are featureless once the farmer is no longer involved, pancreatitis
then I have watched huge piles of earth being moved, otolaryngologist
adding strange landmarks unnatural to the flat prairie. The landscape becomes more and more constructed by man. Its more recently that these changes are becoming more and more frequent as well.

I connect to this landscape for many reasons. My early childhood was spent on a pig farm and I take a huge comfort seeing all this space, just earth and sky because I think I can actually feel the air move gently around me. My heritage comes also from a farming background, my dads parents came here to Canada from Germany just after the Second World War and my moms family has been in Canada from a few more generations; both of which were farmers of some sort in Manitoba. When I am outside in these fields I feel connected to that simpler way of life that was shorten for me by moving off the farm.

I have developed a forever increasing collection of photographs of clouds, many of which are of sunrises I have seen when out and about walking in the morning, and some also where I work. I document them and capture the landscape that is fleeting but so beautiful. A theory I am toying with is continuing with land art and only keep the photo documents of what I do, thereby understanding what mark I leave on nature and my connections too it.

man made rock pile in river by myselfman made rock formation #1 by myselfman made rock formation #2 by myself

Zoe~
Exhibit: Transformations: A.Y. Jackson and Otto DixGlenbow Museum, troche Calgary Alberta
September 7, generic
2013 – January 12, 2014
This exhibition is produced by the Canadian War Museum, with the generous support of the National Gallery of Canada.

Musing before-hand on the Transformations exhibit at the Glenbow Museum featuring work by A.Y. Jackson and Otto Dix, I was compelled by an awareness of how much the Group of Seven are identified with the Canadian consciousness. As a young student, I was exposed to the work of the primarily Ontario artists, and learned early to differentiate between the painting styles of the Varleys, Lismers, MacDonalds, Jacksons et al. The stunning landscapes of the Canadian psyche were painted by this group of artists, and by their peers like Emily Carr and Tom Thomson. ( I was particularly attracted to the tragic story of Thomson: certain of a shared heritage and kinship, and swept away by his rugged good looks and mysterious demise. This was an adolescent art student’s über Canadian fantasy.) The images of the Group of Seven’s paintings appear on calendars, engagement books, coffee cups, placemats and stamps. We are inundated with the landscapes of these artists, and have subliminally adopted their vision of Canada as our own. I am left to wonder if that is true with Germany and the visions of Otto Dix? Is Dix as crucial a component of the evolution of the German identity as Jackson is to ours? If so, then their nationalist identity is very much darker than our own. I didn’t find any clear answers to that question on the exhibit at the Glenbow (I am sure that I can figure that one out), but it is an interesting juxtaposition of artists.

Thematically the curator from the Canadian War Museum, Dr. Laura Brandon, has linked the two men in their first hand depictions of war. There are some poignant examples of sketches that are of the same location, but from different sides of the trenches. Both Dix and Jackson painted Lorette Ridge in France, but from different vantages of No Man’s Land. What is clear in the paintings, sketches and prints from both these artists is the different personal view that is exposed in their work. Dix’s work was targeted as degenerate, and he was dismissed from his Dresden teaching position as just one of the punishments meted on him for his viewpoint. Jackson on the other hand, was portrayed as a nationalist Canadian hero with his Group of Seven painting style.

Of course, there are huge differences in the geographical realities of the two men. Jackson went abroad to fight for the Empire, and survived. He often credited being a war artist with his survival in France. However, he was able to return to Canada and to a land unravaged by the effects of war. Dix stayed in Europe, and witnessed the after effects of the deprivation of WW1, and the rise of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. His work is dark, a biting social commentary on war, corruption and misplaced ideals. Jackson’s work is more concerned with a nationalist landscape of nature, perhaps his solace from the horrors that he had witnessed.

My companion and I both agreed that the exhibit was frustrating in its layout. The floor plan is a bit confusing as to chronologically where to start, and to my great disappointment, many of the prints and paintings had no information as to medium and method. ( So I just had to buy the Taschen book on Otto Dix to get that information.) Only $9.00 admission for a student at the Glenbow, and the exhibits are a feast. Also went to see Made in Calgary: the 1980s. Till next post….

– Christine Thomson

To start off my first post on the blog I thought I would just share this video I just found today on my Tumblr feed. It is really amusing and I can not say entirely how to seriously take it. The more is better concept comes to mind, anaemia
and my personal goal to become minimalistic is at odds, store so Im going to start with that. Im sure many can relate coming to art school has increased both our knowledge base and our possessions. By possessions, what is ed
referring to our tools of trade so to speak. For example; I sewed before but never dyed, now I have silk waiting to be transformed, I beaded, now I can sodder silver and other metals into jewelry and the like, I sculpted with clay now I felt! Well the list goes on!

Its really amazing what has been accomplished these past three years. However, this May I am going to have to start the next chapter of my life and if Im going to do that there are going to be a lot of new things I want to do to kick it off. Such as moving out on my own and defining myself in the world. So having less “stuff” would be significantly easier to manage. This summer I pondered things about my practice, actually in a cemetery one day at work, and I found a connection to rituals in my work (if I am not assuming to much at this point). So working with branches and natural materials has a lot of meaning for me. Where I come from and where Im going, the usual. Its also the feeling of shedding skin, removing items of your past from your present that I am thinking about recently.

-Zoe

Welcome!

The Fibre Blog is produced by students, faculty and staff in the Fibre program. To join the conversation and comment on any post, click on the post title.